AI & Local News

Connecting people, ideas and tools from artificial intelligence, automation, and news to support sustainability and innovation in the journalism industry and sustain quality journalism.

The AI & Local News initiative – supported by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation – helps local news organizations to utilize artificial intelligence through projects with Associated Press, Brown Institute's Local News Lab, NYC Media Lab, and Partnership on AI.


AI & local news

men and women with name tags sitting at meeting table

AI & Local News @ NYC Media Lab

Regional, local, and community-based newsrooms are continuing to experience resource constraints. At NYC Media Lab we're working on projects to foster a pipeline of AI talent, products, and services to advance a sustainable future for local journalism. We believe interdisciplinary collaborations and knowledge sharing are critical to bridging this gap and leveraging AI in newsrooms.

  • Community Platform: a newsletter and resources on this website that connect the challenges local newsrooms face with the opportunities provided by new tools.

  • AI & Local News Challenge: an opportunity for startups and university teams to develop and advance projects that use AI to address the needs of news organizations.

How Newsrooms Use AI

jornalists looking at whiteboard full of post-itsAI tools can be used to meet news audience needs and aid reporters in several ways, including helping with Newsgathering, Investigations, Fact-checking, Audience engagement, and Personalization. A year-long analysis and observations by Knight Foundation on how AI impacts journalism gathered many examples including:


NewsLab 2020

panel speakers at eventThe NYC Media Lab team produced NewsLab 2020, an event that convened more than 150 interdisciplinary practitioners in journalism and technology. Over the course of several days, including a follow-up event for participants, several key themes emerged as priorities for the community:

  • Newsrooms across the country are continuing to experience resource constraints, especially in smaller, local, and community-based newsrooms
     
  • New tools that leverage AI and explore computational journalism can help address this widening resource gap.
     
  • Interdisciplinary collaborations and knowledge sharing are critical to bridging this gap and leveraging AI in newsrooms.